In St Paul, after taking a 2-0 lead in the first period, the Wild needed a goal from Kirill Kaprizov with five seconds left in extra time to defeat the visiting Montreal Canadiens, 3-2 on Thursday night.
“We’ve been in a lot of overtime games as of late, and particularly tonight, I thought we had a great start,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “I thought the second period we got away from it a little bit and I thought they got some life and momentum. And then even just the late goal that they scored, but just our ability to stay with it and just talk about our focus level, you know, the mental toughness to understand that there’s going to be ebbs and flows in games, but I just think our focus level, our poise and confidence in the tight games has looked good.”
The Wild moved to 14-13-4.
Filip Gustavsson made 22 saves in the win.
The Wild took their two-goal lead in the first period, starting with Matt Boldy at 13:19 scoring off the power play for a 1-0 lead.
Marco Rossi pushed the advantage to 2-0 at 14:54 of the opening stanza.
“I just kind of saw an opening,” the Wild’s Zach Bogosian said after setting up Rossi. “He did a good job of filling that lane, getting open. I think it starts with we turn the puck over, we made them turn the puck over and we get north quick again, right back at them. Really don’t let them get set up defensively and plays like that are going to help you.”
Montreal dropped to 14-13-5.
“Honestly, down 2-0 … I felt like we didn’t maximize our [offensive]-zone time,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said. “Because we had time in there. We weren’t doing a good job in high ice. Our [defensemen], we were releasing pucks and our [defensemen] weren’t able to get to the next thing. We corrected ourselves because we talked about it. Again, we’re learning. Playing against a team that plays zone defense, playing against a team that plays man-on-man, playing against teams that play hybrid like we do, there’s some little adjustments and nuances and sometimes you almost have to feel it and like, ‘OK, that’s what we’re talking about.’ We did. We corrected ourselves in the second, and it was an excellent period for us.”
Montreal’s David Savard got one back at 8:17 of the middle frame to make it 2-1 headed to the third period favor of the Wild.
“It was a pretty even game,” Montreal’s Brendan Gallagher said. “Obviously they jumped on us pretty early, we battled back, battled back. We were slowly feeling like we were taking over the game. They made one more play than we did.”
The Habs’ Nick Suzuki tied the match, 2-2, with 69 seconds gone in the third period.
Minnesota reclaimed the lead on a strike by Brock Faber who scored off the power play at 8:57 of the third period to tie the game, 3-2.
Montreal’s Juraj Slafkovsky was credited with the tying goal, 3-3, at 16:57 of the third.
“To be honest, I just felt it go off my (body),” Slafkovsky said. “Then I saw it in the net, so I thought at first (Suzuki) scored a goal because he was kind of in that area, but then they told me it went off some skate. Pretty much I don’t care how it goes it. It just matters that it was 3-3.”
Sam Montembeault made 20 saves in the loss.
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